


Pincushion

by Notabluemaia



Series: Pre-Quest Shire Tales ~ Romance, Adventure & Traditions [2]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illustrations, Pre-Quest, Sewing, The One Ring - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 18:37:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notabluemaia/pseuds/Notabluemaia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The master of Bag End convalesces in the Gamgee smial; Marigold wants to help, but danger unknown lurks by his side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pincushion

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Possibly AU, Sequel to _Grafting Roses_ Shire Dreams. With great love and thanks to my dear beta, Tiriel, or tiriel_35. And now I want to collect all those charmingly quaint pincushions I saw online. Tomatoes especially, like my grandmother's!

 

  
[](http://photobucket.com)  
 _Marigold Gamgee_ , detail  
  


  
Marigold severed the thread above its knot, set aside scissors and thimble, and tucked her needle into her mother’s little sand and sawdust pincushion. She held up the fine linen shirt and shook it out. Making small _tsking_ sounds, she peered closely at every inch, squinting tired eyes against the glare of morning sunshine through the windowpanes. The worst had been on the left front – the buttons had been torn right off and their holes dragged sideways too; she’d rather not think on the bruising strength of rocks and rushing waters that had ripped the shirt from his breast...  
  
Well, it wouldn’t do for his finest any more, but she’d saved it from the rag bag, which was some comfort; there’d been little enough of that these last days. She’d spent a good while yesterday working patiently at the stains, scrubbing, soaking, teasing each spot away. Of course, mud and blood always were the hardest to get out, and it’d taken quite a pounding to rinse out the rough starch of mud-churned river water. But now the shirt was white as it ever was going to be, though a good deal softer even than it had been. But she didn’t think the master would mind; from what she’d seen of Bag End’s regular laundry, he might actually choose clothes for their feel as much as their proper look, given the creamy shirts and linens and fine textured wools she’d cleaned, dried, brushed and pressed back to freshness. Or maybe that ‘feel’ was just what came with fabrics of such quality?  
  
How odd that someone who could do any grand thing he chose might also have simple little likes and dislikes, just like any ordinary hobbit. She’d heard about the goings on at Bag End all her life – a favourite topic for any conversation – his uncle, the old master, and about every turn of the seasons, and all about how the young master had come to live at Bag End. He’d been a merry, even mischievous, lad, and a special favourite of her ma’s, but that was long before she’d known him. Not that she knew him personally now, other than that he generally had a kind word for anyone in service to him, and was known for taking long walks by himself – as if just wandering the countryside were a pleasure – and many a time she’d seen him sitting quietly in the garden’s shade, reading or sketching or just talking with Sam as he worked nearby. And now, to add to the little she knew, there was this taste for soft clothes, a thing that he probably hardly thought of himself, and would never have mentioned to her, a thing about him more intimate somehow than the small clothes she’d laundered. Neither this shirt nor those finely woven wool trousers he’d been wearing – Sam had desperately stripped him and dropped the sodden mess to the floor planks - likely so much as tickled, let alone itch—  
  
She shook her head, her face flushing with embarrassment. Such cheek, thinking on how the master’s clothes might feel on his skin! And him lying sick abed in the very next room. She must be giddy tired, having such daft thoughts. Well, they all were, weren’t they, and needed a break, though it’d taken choice words from their Gaffer to make Sam budge from the master’s side, and true ones, too, for it weren’t going to do any good at all for him, or any of them, to wear himself too sick and ragged to pull his weight for Bag End. That’d sent Sam scurrying, wolfing down bread and cheese and a winter apple, then off to wash up and tend sorely neglected basic needs, with maybe a fly-by to Bag End (she had quickly retrieved his toothbrush, and those fine cotton nightshirts, so much more suitable for a gentlehobbit than Sam’s outgrown blue one, the only thing they’d had in the pinch that didn’t fair swamp the master’s less burly figure. Each one beautiful, but too thin, really, when he still needed a bottle at his feet and back, kept to a pleasant warmth, its stone well-wrapped in flannel so as not to burn).  
  
With a last check on their sleeping master (and she’d noted the way he’d laid a hand to brow and shoulder, gentle as a kitten’s paw) and a ‘Take care, Mari, I’ll be right back before you know it!’, Sam had been out the door. And their Gaffer and Ham had already gone to Bag End, where they’d have the simple relief of hard work outside and being able to do something - _anything_ – whilst she was left here watching and waiting all alone – except of course for him lying so pale and still… still almost as death come right inside their own smial to snatch a hobbit far too soon. Again…  
  
She made herself release the shirt fabric crumpled in her hands, twisting instead at the pincushion, its gritty insides yielding beneath her fingertips. A plump strawberry studded with embroidered seeds and tiny black beads, with a green felt crown and a curling stem. One of her favourite keepsakes… But in truth, it was no more like the sweet real fruit than memories were to what she’d lost all those years ago. She’d been a toddler, then, trailing her ma like a duckling from coop to kitchen to market, usually with her own little matching strawberry dangling, its frayed stem clutched in one small hand. Her mother had made many such cunning little fruits, vegetables, and animals, each charmingly quaint, as toys to delight her own brood – Sam’s was an acorn with a stitched smile and cap tightly smocked to the bobbled texture – and as bride and birth tokens. She’d had a whimsical way of doing even the most practical tasks, and if she hadn’t been taken so young – why, her ma couldn’t have been much older than the master was now – maybe her youngest wouldn’t have been quite so bossy (she had to admit maybe she was, just a bit, but only when she really did know best…), and would’ve picked up as much of her sweet good humour as Sam, who everyone said was just like their sunny ma.  
  
But that good humour wasn’t to be seen lately what with all his fretting, and wouldn’t be for a while, neither, leastways till the master was back on his feet. That was bad enough, the furrowed frown and a grim set to his lips, but she knew in her bones that if they’d lost him, it would’ve taken the light of sun, moon, and stars from their Sam, and that was the plain truth. Why, it was a fearful thing even now to think on Sam’s face when he’d first come in, and seen; that kind of raw pain wasn’t something she ever wanted to witness again—  
  
Ouch! Now, that plain _hurt_! She set aside the strawberry and brought her pricked finger to her lips – no sense smearing blood where she’d only just worked so hard to rid it – and sucked away the droplet, scolding herself for neglecting to mind the sharp needle secured in the innards of the pincushion.  
  
Now what was that she’d heard – a call from Mr. Frodo? Or had she made that sound herself? Maybe he’d woken or stirred while she was wool-gathering, not paying heed to what she was supposed to mind? She stood abruptly, draping the shirt over her arm (she’d lay it where it’d be close to hand if – no, _when_ – he needed it) and crossed the kitchen.  
  
But she could see from the doorway that the master was asleep and far as she could tell, hadn’t even moved from where Sam left him. She sighed her relief and laid the shirt on the trousers, linens, and braces folded on the straight chair by the bed; his brocade waistcoat hung neatly over its back. She reached to the thickly textured fabric. What was it to wear such things? They’d certainly not do for the sort of work her brothers and Gaffer had to do each and every day. But wouldn’t their Sam look fine… and she’d a mind to a dress of fine silk that would make her the belle of every ball…  
  
Another sound, and she whirled around to the bedside.  
  
The master’s rest wasn’t as peaceful as she’d first thought, and that might have been a soft groan as he began to rouse from slumber. It was a right shame to see his hair so tangled despite Sam’s efforts to finger comb the river-dulled curls, his face so lined and bleak, cheekbones sharp beneath stretched pale skin. Well, their Gaffer had said that he’d still need the poppy infusion today, though he’d warned that they must stop it soon as they could.  
  
“Shhhh, now, sir, all’s well…” Timidly she patted the master’s hair as he settled.  
  
Poor dear, it looked like he could use some comfort, now. But wouldn’t Sam have given him the morning dose before he left? She glanced to the bedside table where the distinctive brown vial stood amidst the night time litter: pots of salve; a glass half full of water sparkling in the morning light; a guttered candle; the basket of healing supplies, strips of bandage spilling over the sides; stained bits of fabric and something like a crumpled envelope; and there – the small wooden spoon, its bowl stained and sticky from the last dose.  
  
It wouldn’t do for Sam to come back so tired and worried to this bit of a muddle he’d left, when she could easily sort it; there hadn’t been a single time when he’d let the room look or smell like a sickroom. Aired it daily, the sash thrown wide, with Mr. Frodo tucked snugly beneath eiderdown while a crisp breeze swept away the bitterness of poultice, salve and suffering. Stems from the first clustered tulips to bloom along the front steps, their green scent of spring nodding at his bedside. But the blossoms had drooped, scattering their bright petals over the jumble. She picked at withered petals fallen on the scraps of fabric and the yellowed paper tucked behind the water jug—  
  
Mr. Frodo had said something, hadn’t he? When she laid the back of her hand to his brow, he frowned, and pulled away, groaning as if he was in pain.  
  
Surely it was far too soon for more? But he really did seem to need it. And here it was, the vial right next to – what was that? All that clutter on the nightstand, what with spoons and potions, salves and cloth strips, the small jug and basin, her own mug of tea gone cold – since when? She must’ve left it and forgotten, for Sam never would have. Best take it, and the other litter, even that old wadded paper…  
  
That… wasn’t that what Mr. Frodo’d been holding fast when they brought him? What was that? An envelope? Something better put somewhere safer than this muddle. She tugged it from behind the jug. Might’ve been good heavy paper once, but now it was a rumpled tracery of creases beneath a red wax seal, with something oddly heavy inside. Small and round beneath her probing fingertips – a ring? Surely something far too fine to risk it being swept up with the litter—  
  
She crumpled it tightly to her breast, imagining its sheen, warm and golden upon her hand, and closed her eyes, quite giddy with thoughts of weddings and-no, not Tom Cotton - a tall and handsome hobbit bringing her money and position…  
  
But for a ring to be so dear the master had clutched it tight almost to his death, then Mr. Frodo must have given _his_ heart– and it wasn’t likely anyone she knew or she’d have heard an earful by now, and that was one thing she was sure of. And if it weren’t someone she knew, then someone afar might be coming as his bride – or even take the master far from Bag End. And then their Sam would suffer heartache she could hardly bear thinking on, and there wasn’t a thing she could do to help her brother through what lay ahead.  
  
She staggered suddenly, bumping heavily against the bed, starting with guilt at the sharp intake of his breath as she jostled her bruised master.  
  
Paper crackled within her hand, and her palm was suddenly warm. What had she been about to do?  
  
 _Ah, yes._  
  
Slipping Mr Frodo's envelope into her apron pocket, she picked up the brown bottle and the spoon. 'Twould be best to get this in him straight away, for she really didn't like to see him to hurt so, and especially not when Sam'd be back any minute. There wasn't a breath he took that Sam wouldn't give with all his heart for his master's good and he'd be back again, all too soon. She just needed to make sure, before then…  
  
Now _what_ was it that Gaffer said about the dosing?


End file.
